Postponing vs changing due date
ksingernc says:
Why would I want to postpone a task rather than changing the due date? What is the benefit of postponing?
(closed account) says:
I don't use postponing myself, but I can see that one benefit would be that you can setup a Smart List to show you the tasks that have been postponed a certain number of times.
Also, I guess, it's just one click to push a task off to the next day; it would take more clicks to change the date.
Personally, I just change the date if I want to do that. Or, I'll just let it sit where it is so it's showing as overdue. That alerts me to something that I need to take care of.
I'm not sure that helps much. Perhaps those who use the Postpone feature can reply with how they use it.
Also, I guess, it's just one click to push a task off to the next day; it would take more clicks to change the date.
Personally, I just change the date if I want to do that. Or, I'll just let it sit where it is so it's showing as overdue. That alerts me to something that I need to take care of.
I'm not sure that helps much. Perhaps those who use the Postpone feature can reply with how they use it.
If you Postpone a task, you are pushing it forward by a specific amount of time (x days, weeks, months, etc). You cannot Postpone a task to a specific date or time. For example, if you have a task due Monday and you want to move it to Friday, you can't type "Friday" in the Postpone search box and there is no date picker to choose a day.
You can, however, type a date in that box and it will give you the option to postpone to that date.
The Make Due button, in contrast, accepts both dates and days of the week ("1/11" or "Saturday"). It will also accept a time interval in the future, such as "5 days". However, if you type "5 days" into the box for Make Due, it will interpret this as "5 days FROM TODAY" vs the Postpone box which would interpret that as "5 days FROM THE CURRENT DUE DATE OF THE TASK".
The Make Due button also has a handy calendar picker, which is missing for some reason in Postpone.
The basic reason for using one over the other is just convenience in achieving the desired result. This is based on what you're trying to do... if you want to push a task's existing due date ahead a certain amount of time, or to a specific date (but not day of the week oddly), vs if you want to give it a NEW due date.
One more advanced reason for doing one vs the other is that tasks track the number of times they've been postponed, but not the number of times they've been rescheduled. You can click the "i" icon in the top right of the task details to see this.
So, if you've got a task due today that you know you won't complete, you have three options: 1) leave the due date alone, 2) postpone it, 3) reschedule it (make due on a new date).
#1 will result in the task being OVERDUE with a due date in the past. You might use this to help you track things that are... well, past due. These will show up RED, for one thing. Which will either make them stand out more and be easier to identify, or will be more noisy and distracting if your workflow has this happen more often than not.
#2 can be useful to avoid overdue tasks in RED making your task list noisy. Also good for intentionally pushing off a task (you're acknowledging that you aren't going to get that thing done by the due date and accepting a new date). But, you can use smart lists, searches, or sorting to help push to your attention more the more they've been postponed. If nothing else, you can ask the question "how many times have I pushed this off?".
#3 is probably the most convenient, because you have the calendar picker to visually select when you want to have the task due. But this loses the ability to track that you've pushed it off. Try to save this for instances where you are RESCHEDULING rather than pushing it off.
Honestly, it's too bad tasks don't track BOTH rescheduling AND postponements. This would be nice for distinguishing between situations where something needs to be rescheduled for reasons beyond your control vs those where you couldn't get to something. As it is, it's ambiguous enough and the two functions lack parity in convenience, so I can't rely on the postponement number because I know I'm not disciplined enough to only use each one for particular reasons consistently. I often have to take a task I've postoned from day to day to day and just finally reschedule it to a weekend day a few weeks later because I'm tired of seeing it.
You can, however, type a date in that box and it will give you the option to postpone to that date.
The Make Due button, in contrast, accepts both dates and days of the week ("1/11" or "Saturday"). It will also accept a time interval in the future, such as "5 days". However, if you type "5 days" into the box for Make Due, it will interpret this as "5 days FROM TODAY" vs the Postpone box which would interpret that as "5 days FROM THE CURRENT DUE DATE OF THE TASK".
The Make Due button also has a handy calendar picker, which is missing for some reason in Postpone.
The basic reason for using one over the other is just convenience in achieving the desired result. This is based on what you're trying to do... if you want to push a task's existing due date ahead a certain amount of time, or to a specific date (but not day of the week oddly), vs if you want to give it a NEW due date.
One more advanced reason for doing one vs the other is that tasks track the number of times they've been postponed, but not the number of times they've been rescheduled. You can click the "i" icon in the top right of the task details to see this.
So, if you've got a task due today that you know you won't complete, you have three options: 1) leave the due date alone, 2) postpone it, 3) reschedule it (make due on a new date).
#1 will result in the task being OVERDUE with a due date in the past. You might use this to help you track things that are... well, past due. These will show up RED, for one thing. Which will either make them stand out more and be easier to identify, or will be more noisy and distracting if your workflow has this happen more often than not.
#2 can be useful to avoid overdue tasks in RED making your task list noisy. Also good for intentionally pushing off a task (you're acknowledging that you aren't going to get that thing done by the due date and accepting a new date). But, you can use smart lists, searches, or sorting to help push to your attention more the more they've been postponed. If nothing else, you can ask the question "how many times have I pushed this off?".
#3 is probably the most convenient, because you have the calendar picker to visually select when you want to have the task due. But this loses the ability to track that you've pushed it off. Try to save this for instances where you are RESCHEDULING rather than pushing it off.
Honestly, it's too bad tasks don't track BOTH rescheduling AND postponements. This would be nice for distinguishing between situations where something needs to be rescheduled for reasons beyond your control vs those where you couldn't get to something. As it is, it's ambiguous enough and the two functions lack parity in convenience, so I can't rely on the postponement number because I know I'm not disciplined enough to only use each one for particular reasons consistently. I often have to take a task I've postoned from day to day to day and just finally reschedule it to a weekend day a few weeks later because I'm tired of seeing it.
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